Wednesday, November 18, 2015

I
hear a lot about transnationalism these days.
I have an essay forthcoming in a book TEACHING
TRANSNATIONAL CINEMA: POLITICS AND PEDAGOGY (Routledge, 2016), which
concentrates on immigrant identities, transnational encounters, foreignness,
cosmopolitanism and citizenship, terrorism, border politics, legality and race. Further information can be found at https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138928435.

The American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT) has
an event forthcoming at the end of this month on “Transnational American
Studies,” that explores Shelley Fisher Fishkin’s suggestion that American
Studies should expand its remit into “multidirectional flows of people, ideas,
and goods,” as well as establishing “social, political, linguistic, cultural,
and economic crossroads” that would enrich our understanding of America and its
global impact http://www.asat-jast.org/index.php/2015-asat-conference/conference-information. The Journal I
edit for ASAT, the Journal of American
Studies in Turkey, tries to perpetuate this transnational spirit through
accepting a wide variety of submissions, not necessarily about “America” as a
social, political or cultural construct, but which involve dialogic matters in
some way, shape or form.

Yet the more I become involved in transnational
studies, the more confused I become as to how to define it. What distinguishes this mode of thinking from
international or multinational studies, or even cross-national studies? As a Brit living in Turkey editing an
American Studies journal, am I a transnational?
And are the majority of papers I hear at conferences comparing one
cultural construction with another really “transnational,” or simply a modified
form of “intercultural studies,” a concept that enjoyed popularity in the late
Nineties but which seems to have fallen into disfavor now.

It was quite by chance that I heard a speech given by
Fred Gardaphė, Distinguished Professor at the John D. Calendra Italian American
Institute at Queens College, New York, at the Italian American Studies
conference in Naples. Like many scholars
in the field, he called for greater collaboration between scholars of different
cultures – Italians as well as Americans – to reframe “American Studies” in
such a way that it no longer centered on “America” but rather explored
questions of shifting identity construction. This process should be achieved not only
through scholarly research but through dialogue
– the kind of constructive academic work that requires us not to impose our
views on others but rather listen to
them. Although Gardaphė did not describe
the model in quite the same terms, he advocated listening rather than just listening; not just taking into account
the words people say, but trying to decode the meaning behind them. This is
something way beyond the politics of diplomacy; it requires us to study
character – not only the characters of those whom we address, but our own
character as well. We have to be
prepared to shift our perspective, to allow for new learning and new insights
that might strike us totally spontaneously. In short, we have to learn openness.

Gardaphė’s arguments struck me as revelatory. He was not just focusing on transnationalism
as a series of general issues – race, politics, class, citizenship – but rather
suggesting an a priori willingness to
become passionate about listening to and learning from others. This ability could pave the way for an
enhanced understanding of what “transnationalism” represents to individuals and
the diverse worlds they inhabit.

I subsequently traveled to São Paulo for another
conference, this time on the relationship between adaptation and
translation. While there were
interventions focusing exclusively on textual issues, the majority of the
participants seemed far more interested in “transnationalism,” as a form of
dialogic exchange. Not only could this
process be enacted through reading papers, but – perhaps more significantly –
through informal exchanges. The
participants exhibited a refreshing honesty not found in most conferences
(which tend to comprise a series of formal papers read out loud for the sole
purposes of improving one’s academic résumé), that manifested itself in a
willingness to apply the insights learned from listening to papers to their own
lives. How could listening to a paper on
translating children’s literature into Portuguese, and the decisions taken by
specific translators, affect the ways in which we look at the world? Is there such a concept as cultural
specificity, or is this simply an artificial construct designed to reinforce
boundaries between self and other? Such
ontological questions lie at the basis of any transnational outlook.

As I listened to the papers, I began to realize that
transnationalism is inseparable from transculturality and translingualism. Until such time as we learn to dissolve the
boundaries separating one subject discipline from another (which tend to be
culturally determined), we will not really acquire a transnational
perspective. Likewise we should realize
that dialogue between representatives of different nations and cultures does
not have to take place in one language; to do so is to impose an artificial
hegemony on work that actively resists hegemonic incorporation. Rather we should be free to use whatever
communicative strategies we wish; it’s important for others to understand why we use them rather than simply to
understand them. Form matters as much, if not more than content.

If this is the case, then perhaps we need to start
looking for ways in which the events described at the beginning of this post
can be amalgamated, thereby permitting participants to think across disciplines as well as
cultures. Only then can they acquire the
breadth of openness that might pave the way for a genuinely transnational view
of life. Maybe American Studies needs to
come out of its disciplinary cocoon; likewise Film Studies.